Tag Archives: petroleum

There Will Be Crud (re-broadcast)

California’s Kern County is the state’s primary producer of oil. But the stuff that comes out of the ground in this desert region of southern California isn’t the black liquid many of us imagine rushing like a geyser out of the earth, but a thick goopy substance that must be forced out of the ground. What do they use to do that? A resource that’s nearly as valuable in this dusty corner of California’s Central Valley: water. For this re-broadcast episode from March 2011, our guest is Jeremy Miller, an investigative journalist who’s written an article in the February issue of Orion Magazine. He tells us all about Kern County, how the methods used to extract the cruddy crude are pitting agricultural interests against oil interests, how water is being expended in the endless pursuit of petroleum, and how, by reducing our dependence on oil, we’d also be preventing the waste of that life-giving compound, H2O. They say water and oil don’t mix, today on Sea Change Radio, we discover what happens when they do.

Filmmaker Josh Tickell: Fueling the Ethanol Debate

Ask an environmentally aware friend of yours what they think about ethanol and the response will probably be negative. Critics of this long-established biofuel will say that it’s not a viable long-term replacement for petroleum-based fuels, that it competes with food production by diverting corn, that it’s hard to store, doesn’t travel well, or doesn’t go to the more underlying problem of over-consumption. But how did most of us reach this conclusion? Who made these drawbacks to ethanol part of conventional wisdom?

This week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, filmmaker, Josh Tickell, offers a different perspective. Tickell recently completed a documentary film titled Freedom that presents ethanol as a solution to this country’s reliance on fossil fuels. Host Alex Wise asks him how his thinking on this subject changed so dramatically since his last highly-acclaimed documentary, Fuel, and find out more about why he believes in ethanol’s potential as a clean alternative.

Seizing the Opportunity with Kinkead Reiling of Amyris & Bob Massie

This week on Sea Change Radio we hear from two people who, on separate coasts and in different ways, are pursuing their missions for a more sustainable future. First, host Alex Wise talks with Kinkead Reiling, Co-Founder of Amyris, a Bay Area bio-refining company that hopes its sugar-derived petroleum substitute will, within a few years, offer a competitive, low-emission, sustainable alternative to jet fuel and diesel. Then, Sea Change Radio founder Bill Baue interviews Bob Massie, a pioneer in the movement toward corporate social responsibility, founder of the Global Reporting Initiative, award-winning author and now a candidate in Massachusetts for the U.S. Senate.

There Will Be Crud

California’s Kern County is the state’s primary producer of oil. But the stuff that comes out of the ground in this desert region of southern California isn’t the black liquid many of us imagine rushing like a geyser out of the earth, but a thick goopy substance that must be forced out of the ground. What do they use to do that? A resource that’s nearly as valuable in this dusty corner of California’s Central Valley: water. Our guest this week is Jeremy Miller, an investigative journalist who’s written an article in the February issue of Orion Magazine. He tells us all about Kern County, how the methods used to extract the cruddy crude are pitting agricultural interests against oil interests, how water is being expended in the endless pursuit of petroleum, and how, by reducing our dependence on oil, we’d also be preventing the waste of that life-giving compound, H2O. They say water and oil don’t mix, today on Sea Change Radio, we discover what happens when they do.